Racing Around: Rainout leaves hole in schedule

James Ellis

Sports Reporter

jellis@leaderherald.com

Last night’s rain out of the Jack Johnson Tribute race and the 13th Annual Hondo Classic at Fonda Speedway throws a monkey wrench into the scheduling for possible make-up dates.

With two weeks left to the regular schedule before the annual break for the annual Fonda Fair, and The Jack being a Super DIRTcar Series event carrying a guaranteed starting spot in the main event at Super DIRT Week, there are not a whole lot of options.

A makeup date has to be scheduled with DIRTcar since it is a series event and right now their schedule does show an open date on Aug. 8 but there are series races at Merrittville and Ransomville on Monday and Tuesday.

Fonda already has Aug. 15 booked with the Granddaddy for 602 sportsman and a King of Dirt 358-modified race on tap. Add the big blocks for 100 laps and a special event for the pro stocks and, yes, it would be an outstanding race card but you would have to start mid-afternoon in order to get all the pre-and post-race festivities in along with the racing.

Who knows, maybe the Thunder Along the Mohawk weekend event will carry two Super DIRT Week spots.

Correction in finish

There is a change in the order of finish in the pro stock main event last Sunday at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park.

In Monday’s article in The Leader-Herald, I listed Cousin Luke Horning as the winner of the pro stock main event.

I was incorrect.

After the race, there was no Victory Lane celebration on the frontstretch and Horning was penalized two spots for an on-track incident moving Justin Knight up first and Ivan Joslin into second ahead of Horning.

It was the kind of weekend most racers only dream about for 11-year-old Derrick McGrew Jr.

The young 602 sportsman pilot became the youngest driver to win a feature at Albany-Saratoga Speedway last Friday with his victory in the 25-lap limited sportsman main event.

He followed it up with a second-place finish in the limited sportsman feature at Fonda on Saturday and notched another victory in the division at Glen Ridge on Sunday.

That makes one win at Malta, and six at The Ridge to go with four so far this year at Fonda.

The Ridge Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame Committee got together last weekend and put together a solid list of people to make up the inaugural class to be inducted into the Glen Ridge Motorsports Park Hall of Fame. The inductions will take place during intermission of the Aug. 19 program.

Topping the list is the Hayes Family for providing all of us with a track that has grown from hosting go-karts to becoming one of the fastest quarter mile tracks for the big cars in the Capital District.

They will be joined by modified drivers Randy Hotaling and Bob Vedder and street stock campaigner and major supporter of the speedway as it grew, Don Warner.